You think 2015 was Hot – It's gonna be worse in 2016

1 January 2016

Forecasts for the future have been thrown into doubt and the rise in the earth’s temperature has certainly alarmed scientists, now that the data has been studied for 2015. And it does not make for good reading.

It’s not just people blogging or tweeting stuff like, “Wow! That was a hot July” or “We didn’t get much snow here in Siberia this year”, these findings are from the likes of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA, who together have confirmed 2015 was the warmest since records began.

Incidentally, records do back to about 1840 in some countries and most countries were recording temperatures since 1850 and the year that has just passed was the warmest. The previous record was set in 2014 and the increase in the world’s average surface temperature was smashed by some 0.13 degrees Celsius.

More alarming is the exponential nature of the increase. Only once before (in 1998) has the new record smashed the previous record by this much. The year 2015 was warmer than 2014, and 2014 was the record-breaking year in itself.

Although these figures make for grim reading, it is of no comfort that the data has been analysed from 6,300 weather stations, buoys based in the sea to measure the ocean temperature and weather station data taken from naval ships. All that data cannot lie and neither can it give any other message that global warming is here to stay. Worse still, it’s getting hotter more quickly than we previously thought.

In London, and in many cities across the planet, December 2015 was so warm that the monthly rise was actually more than most annual rises usually are. Often, during the approach to Christmas in the country, bookies will allow punters to bet whether it will be a White Christmas; in other words, will snowfall on the Met Office roof on December 25. With temperatures reaching 14c (57F) that day, no bets were taken, You may find that bookies may even shelve such a special bet in the future.

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